Ramesh Ponnuru takes apart a shoddy report on the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) by Time magazine’s Amy Sullivan. Sullivan states that FOCA would codify a right to abortion until an unborn child is viable, when it would actually codify a right to abortion effectively throughout all nine months of pregnancy. She doesn’t bother to mention that the bill would also strike down bans on taxpayer funding of abortion and parental-consent laws. She writes that in a letter from 63 pro-abortion organizations to President Obama, FOCA was not included as one of their top fifteen priorities. Sullivan neglects to mention that they do indeed call on Obama to sign FOCA at some point during the next four years. Sullivan oddly claims that FOCA is a “mythical abortion bill” just because it hasn’t been reintroduced in this Congress. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. … It is no answer to say, with distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.” Worst of all, Sullivan writes that it is a “false claim” that FOCA would “lead to at least 100,000 more abortions each year.” Political scientist Michael New, who has studied the effect that taxpayer funding of abortion has on the abortion rate, writes in an email:
Print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account
Digital subscriber? Click here to login/register your account.